KC & The Sunshine Band's show at Prairie Meadows is expected to include some covers along with the group's hits. / SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER

KC and the Sunshine Band

Harry Wayne Casey has been better known as the KC in KC and the Sunshine Band for more than 40 years. If you’ve ever been to a birthday party, wedding, high school dance or countless other events, you’ve danced to “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty.”

Even though he performs the same songs gig after gig, the experience stays fresh for Casey.

“It’s always a different audience every night,” Casey said during a phone interview. “The show is really rapid and from time to time we change things up. We’ll try to keep the basic parts, like the original song, but we’ll mix it up sometimes.”

Despite the Sunshine Band’s multitude of hits, Casey also mixes some covers into live sets. Stephen Stills’ “Love the One You’re With,” Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors,” “Say” by John Mayer and others regularly pop up.

More songs by other artists will be popping up soon, as KC and the Sunshine Band is slated to release a covers album this year. Casey didn’t want to reveal the exact songs, but said it will feature material by Bob Dylan, The Allman Brothers, Judy Collins, The Bee Gees, Sam Cooke, Dionne Warwick and others.

“We try to keep everything in the show familiar to the audience,” Casey said. “I know when I go to a show, I’d rather not hear something obscure that the artist thinks I want to hear.

“I don’t want the audience just sitting there if I play something they don’t know.”

At 63, Casey plans to keep touring until he can’t do it anymore. He’s had talks about doing a show in Vegas or doing a KC an the Sunshine Band musical on Broadway, but for now he describes that as “a lot of talk, with no steps forward.”

So he’ll keep focusing on the music and making thousands of booties shake night after night. He’s got a party to put on, taking on a persona to make people get down.

“I think there’s a certain point where I start putting on the clothes before a show and getting into character,” Casey said. “I know that the time has come for Harry Wayne to become KC.”